Hoodwinked, Social Media, and Looming Consumer Backlash
And some announcements
Hoodwinked is here!!!!
Three years in the making and it’s finally here!!!! Hoodwinked: How marketers use the same tactics as cults is coming to a bookstore near you this week. You can find links to your favorite online stores, on my website.
In conjunction with the book launch, I am holding an online mini-class. Each week, I will post a new video summarizing the content from my in-person college class. The course is based on the book so—as with any class—you will get more out of it if you read the text.
The syllabus is available here, and I will add to it each week. Videos will be available on TikTok and YouTube. At a later date, I will create a full online course. Watch this space for more details.
And, because a lot of you have been asking: yes, there will be an audiobook! I was in the studio recording it last week.
Social Media is Going Through Some Things
The social media landscape can only be described as tumultuous. TikTok hangs on by a thread with the sword of Damocles hanging over its head. Meta has gone full MAGA, turning its back on both users and advertisers which I outlined in a post called, “What the f**k, Zuck?”
Social media is done. Stick a fork in it. Really. This is not new. The trade press has been announcing the death of social media for the last 2 years and now the popular press gets it, too. The difference now is that it looks like it is coming faster than anyone expected. TikTok will likely be gone in a few months, and Meta seems to have lost the plot. Their attempt at AI profiles goes against everything people use social media for. Remember “social is for social”? Finally, social media has been around long enough that Cory Doctorow’s theory of “enshittification” has reached its natural conclusion—advertisers fully infiltrating the social space. In the most dystopian turn, TikTok users were scammed into buying “beautiful crystal mugs” generated by AI, only to have them arrive at their homes being ugly plastic crap…and they were out $40 bucks to boot. (See my TikTok here for more.)
I have been saying for years, that digital advertising is not the paragon of promotion everyone holds it up to be. The digital advertising business is a $300 billion-a-year industry. According to independent researchers, $60 billion of that is fraud. I go into this in much more detail in Hoodwinked, but know now that email marketing is more effective and efficient than any influencer you shell out money for.
So what should marketers do? Let digital media burn itself to the ground. Go back to basics. Go back to your marketing strategy and think about it without digital. Or, if you use digital, think of digitial as a tactic—which is what it always was.
Ben & Jerry’s and the Coming Consumer Boycott
Recently, Ben & Jerry’s has gotten considerable attention online for being, well, Ben & Jerry’s. While other companies from McDonald’s to Coca-Cola to Target are caving to fascism, Ben & Jerry’s is bringing people to the streets to protest just like its founders did in the 1960s.
I’ve written a lot about Ben & Jerry’s over the years, starting with Compassion, Inc. in 2012. This book deconstructs the good and not-so-great of cause marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). More than a decade later, there are few companies we can turn to who do this well and at the scale of B&J. Rather, what most companies do is purpose washing—pretending they care about a cause when they obviously don’t.
We are seeing this play out in company after company cavalierly announcing that they are eliminating DEI initiatives and turning their back on Pride. With Meta, we are seeing them put the LGBTQ+ community at risk, and calling women property. Seems like an odd strategic move when women are the primary purchasers of 80% of consumer goods.
People have had enough and brand companies are going to start to feel it—not right away, but 4 months from now Wall Street will start to notice that sales are in decline. When people are afraid to protest in the streets, they will protest with the power of the pocketbook. Right now, that’s the only vote they feel like they have.
PODCASTS, RADIO, AND EVENTS
SXSW: Hoodwinked book talk on Saturday, March 8th at 2:30. The talk will be followed by a book signing. If anyone will be in Austin, let me know.
Boston University: “Is everything a cult?” Thursday, February 27 at 3:30. Please fill out this form if you would like to attend.
PODCAST: Under the Influence with Jo Piazza
NPR: The Connection. You can listen here for a good overview of the book.
Thank you for supporting my work. Please remember to breathe. We will get through this.